Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam > Blaise Pascal Instituut > Girard Studiekring > COV&R 2007 > Abstracts Papers 

Nikolaus Wandinger

Dramatic Reflections on Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Lecture Revisited  

Email - Profile - Subtheme # 3 - Paper 

ABSTRACT

In his Regensburg Lecture on September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI raised some serious questions about Islam’s relation to violence and to reason. He worded his concerns in a way that caused an outcry in the Muslim world and subsequently led the pope to do some damage control, in which—according to many commentators—he splendidly succeeded, especially during his visit to Turkey in November of the same year.

The threats against the pope that accompanied the criticism led me to a defense of his speech, which in turn led to some argument with my colleague Wolfgang Palaver. In the meantime not only the Vatican homepage has re-edited the pope’s speech, but I also had time to rethink the matter and would like to revisit the lecture because there are very important questions at stake:

From an inside perspective: How are Christians, and the Pope as the leader of the largest Christian church, to engage in dialogue with Islam? Can and should that dialogue also be confrontational? If so, what consequences should we be prepared to face? And what is the difference between the Church entering into inter-religious dialogue and Western society dealing with problems of religious fundamentalism?

I will try to contribute to a solution to these questions by relying both on Raymund Schwager’s dramatic theology and René Girard’s mimetic theory. Therefore I will first take a look at Jesus’ conduct in his conflict with the religious authorities of his day, as Schwager has reconstructed it, and pose the question whether this offers any solutions to our question. While the analysis of Jesus’ conduct is important, I will argue that there cannot be a direct application to inter-religious dialogue for the simple fact that Jesus was not engaged in that: his conflict with the “Scribes and Pharisees” was an inner-Jewish conflict; it was not inter-religious but inner-religious. Yet eventually it led to the formation of Christianity as a new and distinct religion, and soon the Church integrated pagans into herself. From considering this process and applying the mimetic theory to the issues at stake I still hope to indirectly get at some answers to my questions. This will also lead me to a more differentiated stance on the pope’s lecture.